f cloud. In an instant a
frightful sea uprose. The breaking waves, foaming along all their
crests, swept with their full weight over the "Terror." If I had not
been wedged solidly against the rail, I should have been swept
overboard!

There was but one thing to do--to change our machine again into a
submarine. It would find security and calm at a few dozen feet
beneath the surface. To continue to brave the fury of this outrageous
sea was impossible.

Robur himself was on deck, and I awaited the order to return to my
cabin--an order which was not given. There was not even any
preparation for the plunge. With an eye more burning than ever,
impassive before this frightful storm, the captain looked it full in
the face, as if to defy it, knowing that he had nothing to fear.

It was imperative that the terror should plunge below without losing
a moment. Yet Robur seemed to have no thought of doing so. No! He
preserved his haughty attitude as of a man who in his immeasurable
pride, believed himself above or beyond humanity.

Seeing him thus I asked myself with almost superstitious awe, if he
were not indeed a demoniac being, escaped from some supernatural
world.

A cry leaped from his mouth, and was heard amid the shrieks of the
tempest and the howlings of the thunder. "I, Robur! Robur!--The
master of the world!"

He made a gesture which Turner and his companions understood. It was
a command; and without any hesitation these unhappy men, insane as
their master, obeyed it.

The great wings shot out, and the airship rose as it had risen above
the falls of Niagara. But if on that day it had escaped the might of
the cataract, this time it was amidst the might of the hurricane that
we attempted our insensate flight.

The air-ship soared upward into the heart of the sky, amid a thousand
lightning flashes, surrounded and shaken by the bursts of thunder. It
steered amid the blinding, darting lights, courting destruction at
every instant.

Robur's position and attitude did not change. With one hand on the
helm, the other on the speed regulators while the great wings beat
furiously, he headed his machine toward the very center of the storm,
where the electric flashes were leaping from cloud to cloud.

I must throw myself upon this madman to prevent him from driving his
machine into the very middle of this aerial furnace! I must compel
him to descend, to seek beneath the waters, a safety which was no
longer possible eithe